Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Keystone XL pipeline decision delayed until 2014?; MSNBC's climate change documentary goes missing; Salmon vs. mining: Will EPA approve Alaska's massive Pebble Mine?; Kansas farmers to run out of water within 50 years; A key finding in the plateau of rising temperatures; PLUS: A new parody ad takes aim at electric utility monopolies ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

The curious blackout of the cable net's one-hour 'Politics of Power' special
If you missed the MSNBC/Chris Hayes documentary The Politics of Power on August 16, you may never have the chance to see it again in its entirety.
...
[F]or some reason, the rest of the special --- a rare hour-long cable news documentary on the climate crisis and its fossil fuel industry-funded deniers --- has yet to be posted online. Anywhere.

A decision on the fate of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline will likely be delayed until after the release of an inspector general investigation into conflict of interest complaints....[G]iven the attention that the Keystone pipeline has attracted, it is unlikely that the State Department will make a decision on the pipeline before the IG report is finalized.

Ever since President Obama said in June that a litmus test for the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada was whether it would “significantly” worsen global warming, Canadian government officials have insisted it would not. They reasoned that because the pipeline would not have any major effect on rate of development of Canada’s oil sands, as a State Department environmental review concluded in March, it would not significantly raise the amount of carbon emitted.
...
Briefing notes prepared for the natural resources minister, Joe Oliver...noted that “in order for crude oil production to grow, the North American pipeline network must be expanded through initiatives, such as the Keystone XL Pipeline project.”

According to the EPA, the mine footprint itself will destroy between 24 and 90 miles of salmon streams, and normal mine operations will pollute dozens more miles of river habitat with two contaminants known to cause acute effects on salmon.

By running sophisticated computer models that looked at observed energy coming into the climate system, plus observed sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that the decadal-scale cooling of a portion of the tropical Pacific accounts for most of the current plateau in global average surface temperatures.

[T]he 1963 March on Washington led the way to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and later the Voting Rights Act and Fair Housing Act, and helped elevate the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development into a Cabinet-level agency. The 1970 Earth Day helped win to passage of the Clean Water Act, a new Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Given what each of these movements produced independently, it’s scary to think about what they might produce in unison.

The unique oceanside smell that flows over your olfactory organs is loaded with sulfur — dimethylsulfide, to be exact, or DMS. It’s produced when phytoplankton decompose. And it’s a fragrant compound that’s as special as it smells: In the atmosphere it reacts to produce sulfuric acid, which aids in the formation of clouds. But it’s a smell that’s endangered by climate change.

He will not have some leftie-leaning, lily-livered administrator buying eco-friendly lightbulbs. Speaking on his pulsating show, Beck instructed his assistant: "I fire the person who starts to purchase fluorescent lightbulbs."

Evidence gathered from fields in two Illinois counties suggests that pest problems are mounting as the rootworms grow ever more resistant to efforts to fight them, including crop rotation combined with use of the biotech corn, according to the report issued by Michael Gray, a professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois. Farmers across "a wide swath of Illinois" could face formidable challenges in protecting their corn crops from the hungry insects, Gray said in the August 27 report.

Remember Hurricane Katrina? The hurricane that leveled New Orleans showed that severe weather in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color is a matter of life and death....It’s not difficult to see how injustice and inequality played out during Hurricane Katrina....African-Americans living in L.A. are more than twice as likely to die in a heat wave as other residents in the city, thanks to an abundance of pavement and lack of shade, cars and air conditioning in neighborhoods with the fewest resources.

America, we need to talk.
Have a seat.
Remember when President George W. Bush told you seven years ago that you’re addicted to oil?
It’s time to get serious about your problem. So here’s a little tough love.